First it was online payments and money transfers (PayPal). Then the idea to send mice to Mars while monitoring their biology. That turned into reusable rockets (SpaceX), which clearly wasn’t ambitious enough, so let’s throw in autonomous electric cars (Tesla). I know, I know — how are the batteries inside the car going to be powered? Easy — solar panels (SolarCity).

But I want to go faster than a car without breaking the bank. Like, 201 mph (324km/h) fast. Traffic sure is boring, huh? Someone should look into creating underground tunnels powered by high-speed pods. It’d be hilarious if they called it The Boring Company.

So…where are we going to get funding for this? Better refer to the ancient and sage wisdom from a galaxy very, very, very, very far away.

Oh, and flamethrowers. Everyone loves flamethrowers. Like, 20,000 people paying $500 a pop love flamethrowers. Well, that was a quick $10 million.

Great! You’re up to speed.

Arguably the most exciting event out of all of Elon Musk’s accomplishments is set to happen on Tuesday, Feb 6 between 1:30p.m. — 4p.m.
* now delayed until 2:20 p.m. per SpaceX due to upper level wind shear

* now now delayed until 3:45 p.m. per SpaceX due to upper level wind shear

SpaceX will conduct it’s first test launch the Falcon Heavy —think of an XL version of the autonomous Falcon rocket’s you’ve seen in the news the past couple of years.

Made up of three Falcon cores strapped together, which each having 9 rocket engines, the Falcon Heavy boasts 27 engines allegedly capable of producing over 5 million pounds of thrust while being able deliver 140,000lbs of cargo into lower earth orbit. That’s a whole lot of cheese.

Not one for theatrics, Musk plans to keep the payload for this test flight relatively simple — SpaceX has fixated his personal cherry Tesla Roadster to the Falcon Heavy rocket and if all goes according to plan, it’ll be launched into space ala a wee bit of influence from the intro to a cult classic, Heavy Metal (1981).

Like you saw in the animation, the plan is for the Falcon boosters to launch Falcon Heavy to orbit, then two of the three boosters will break off and attempt to land back in SpaceX’s landing zones 1 & 2 in Cape Canaveral, with the Falcon Heavy attempting to land on SpaceX’s droneship, “Of Course I Love You,” in the Atlantic Ocean.

We live in exciting times. If everything goes off without a hitch then the Falcon Heavy will begin it’s path towards an orbit around the Sun known as the Hohmann transfer orbit — don’t worry germaphobes, we won’t be contaminating the ecosystem of Mars…yet.

SpaceX’s live stream should begin shortly before the projected launch window (1:30–4pm). View an embedded video of the live coverage below, but most importantly, tell your friends! The future is now.

For the best live coverage be sure to follow The Verge’s Loren Grush and Ars Technica’s Eric Berger.

Thanks for reading!